ABSTRACT
Breaking down the social, political, and cultural processes through which race, class, and gender worldviews are established, ideological literacies help students look closely at the intricate, contradictory meanings in texts. The purpose of developing ideological literacies in urban youth is so they become more socially conscious of the communication strategies guiding their identities. This chapter explores the ways ideologies are consumed, re-produced, and often internalized by marginalized youth of color in urban communities, ultimately, offering a teacher-oriented analysis of using ideological literacies as an empowering tool for students to examine issues of privilege, social control, and oppression in United States society. Ideologically reading corporate rap opened the opportunity to confront the contradictions of the students’ worldviews, to reconstruct notions of reality, and to develop their critical consciousness. Social justice teaching recurrently calls for democratic education. Institutions of power define the world in ways that maintain hegemonic social orders.
